Archive for the 'Temples' Category

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) is the cathedral of Reims, where the kings of France were once crowned. It replaces an older church, destroyed by a fire in 1211 and built itself on the site of the basilica, where Clovis was baptized by saint Remi, bishop of Reims, in AD 496. The cathedral was completed by the end of the 13th century, with the exception of the Western front. That portion was erected in the 14th century after 13th century designs—the nave having in the meantime been lengthened to afford room for the crowds that attended the coronations. The towers, 81 m tall (approx. 267 ft), were originally designed to rise 120 m (approx. 394 ft). The Southern tower holds two great bells; one of them, named “Charlotte” by the cardinal of Lorraine in 1570, weighs more than 10,000 kg (approx. 11 tons).

The Speyer Cathedral in Speyer, Germany is a very large and imposing basilica of red sandstone, and one of the noblest examples of Romanesque architecture now extant. Alongside the nearby Romanesque cathedrals of Mainz and Worms, it is one of the so-called Kaiserdome (Imperial cathedrals) of the Rhineland. A distinctive feature is the colonnaded gallery that goes around the entire building, just below the roofline.